Building Distributed Systems (vertical industries)

Phil Stanhope has some interesting points to add to Sam Gentile's posting on 'Building Distributed Systems'. We are certainly in the midst of a change not just in technologies but the methodologies to go with it. Back in the late '80s and early '90s - I had spent considerable time on developing systems for the Insurance industry. While the technologies evolved, the methodology (predominantly the 'waterfall') remained the same. It was only after the works of  Boehm ('spiral'), Davis ('software engineering') and others ('XP') had permeated, did the industry make its changes (it's still evolving). Phil's point on vertical industries is a good one but different industries take different schedules in adapting to something new.